Fixed points of rational functions satisfying the Carlitz property

Publication

Publication

Applicable Algebra in Engineering, Communications and Computing

Recent research within the field of cryptography has suggested that S-boxes should be chosen to contain few fixed points, motivating analysis of the fixed points of permutations. This paper presents a novel mean of obtaining fixed points for all functions satisfying a property put forth by Carlitz. We determine particular results concerning the fixed points of rational functions. Such concepts allow the derivation of an algorithm which cyclically generates fixed points for all three classes of functions satisfying the Carlitz property, the most renowned of which are Rédei rational functions. Specifically, we present all fixed points for any given Rédei function in a single cycle, generated by a particular non-constant rational transformation. For the other two classes of functions, we present their fixed points in cycles consisting of smaller cycles of fixed points. Finally, we provide an explicit expression for the fixed points of all Rédei functions over F
q
.